Tag: Craft

One of my favorite things to do each year is make new no-sew felt tree skirts. They’re super easy and fun to make and don’t require any skills except being able to use scissors and glue. You can see past tutorials with measurements and instructions here and here.

This year I needed something to match my office’s retro space age theme, so I used flying saucers and atomic shapes like boomerangs and starbursts.

I used the method detailed here to cut my skirt out of green felt. Then I cut my shapes out of sheets of different colored felts. I used silver metallic rick rack to add rays to my flying saucers and shiny snowflake starburst buttons for a little extra shine. I finished off the edges with silver metallic fringe! I always use standard craft glue to adhere all of it.

Here are the shapes I used to make your felt cutting life a little easier! Print on a standard piece of paper. (Opt to scale to fit paper on your print settings if possible.)

Tada!

Make sure to tag @melodrama or use the hashtag #krysmasgram on Instagram to show me your creations!

Ok I’m going to admit right now I didn’t take process photos because I’m the worst and I wasn’t even sure it was going to work, BUT luckily it’s a pretty straight forward process. (Note: I’m going to make one for a friend so I’ll try to update this post with photos when I do!)

In order to get the deer’s head into the terrarium, but still have the helmet in the position I wanted, I had to make cuts on the points shown below.

I added paper ears and eyes and placed the head in the terrarium. Once the head was in the terrarium (from here on known as the helmet) I reattached the bottom part of the antlers, and the upper part of the neck with craft glue and used chopsticks to help get where I had trouble reaching. Once it was dry, I used wet strips of paper bag and glue to cover the cut seams.

Then I used hot glue to attach the rest of the antler to the top of the helmet, and the helmet to body. I used a black sharpie to draw on the hooves and a nose, then I covered the body in foil tape, and covered all the glue joints with tinsel wire and garlands.

Growing up Mexican-American I grew up celebrating Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). I remember visiting my family in Mexico and going to the cemetery where families would bring gifts, food, and build colorful, elaborate altars (ofrendas) for their loved ones. People would stay all night, often dressing up and painting their faces like skulls.

This tradition is especially popular in LA. For the past 15 years the Hollywood Forever cemetery has been holding yearly Día de los Muertos events with food, contests, and live entertainment. It’s the perfect opportunity to join in and learn more about Mexican culture.

I always try to bring elements of Dia de los Muertos into my October decorating, so for my first pumpkin of the season I decided on a Día de los Muertos theme.

If you celebrate Día de los Muertos and want to make this for your ofrenda, or maybe just want to show some love for Mexican culture at your home, here’s how to make your own skull pumpkin. You can use a real pumpkin or a faux pumpkin. I want to keep mine long term, so I chose faux.

I started by painting a calavera (skull) on to the pumpkin. If you’re bad at drawing, just search Google for “sugar skull templates” and use it to trace a skull on. Then paint it in with lots of color.

Finish your calaca (skeleton character) off by gluing a crown of flowers around the skull. Marigolds, roses, and other colorful flowers are most authentic.

You’ll need something to cut a hole in the glass. I used a Dremel rotary tool with a diamond saw and diamond bit attachment. I first cut a hole using a diamond wheel, and then evened out the circle and enlarged it by rasping with a diamond drill bit. You don’t want to cut the little birdies’ heads off, so make sure you use a sanding bit to smooth the edges out. That is the grimmest sentence I’ve written in awhile…

ANYWAY.

Once the hole is cut, use the diamond bit to drill a small little hole just under the larger opening. Insert a skewer or small stick in there so the birdies have somewhere to stand while they nibble.

Next use a regular drill bit to make a hole through the cork. Pull a strong string or rope through and make a big knot on the bottom of the cork so it all stays tightly in the bottle. If you want to be extra safe, you can glue the cork into the bottle.

You can decorate it or paint it how ever you’d like. Fill it with your choice of bird seed and hang it out on a tree or patio. The birds will love you. You’ll be like Cinderella! Or the bag lady from Home Alone 2! Or Tippi Hedren in The Birds… Wait, no, let’s go with Cinderella.

Stay tuned for my final Patrón (mini) bottle project and be sure to enter your original projects or art to the Art of Patrón bottle art contest before July 17th for your chance to win $10,000.

Now that the Cinco de Mayo celebrations are over, you’re probably wondering what to do with all those empty Patron bottles. Well I have an idea for you. Have you heard about The Art of Patrón contest? It’s a contest that Patrón is holding in which they’re asking you to repurpose their bottles into works of art. Repurposing and upcycling is a major part of my DIY point of view, so I was really excited when Patrón approached me with the opportunity to create my own projects using their bottles.

Think about all of the cool things you can do with these things! I mean just take a look at some of the last year’s finalists. Incredible right? The grand prize winner gets $10,000 and nine finalists get $1,000 each. So that’s a pretty good incentive to get to work on your own bottles. Plus you get to show off your DIY skills and end up with your very own piece of upcycled art. You guys are pretty creative. I’m sure you can come up with something. Be sure to check out the official Art of Patrón site for details on how to enter the contest.

One of my first thoughts when I saw the bottles was “Score! New succulent planters!”. I’m not a natural green thumb, but I’ve had a lot of success with outside succulents. I wanted to bring some inside and over to my bar, so I thought what better planter for a bar setup than a planter made out of a tequila bottle?

Really, all you have to do is cut the top off of the bottle. There are plenty of ways to cut glass bottles, and if you’ve done it before you can use your method of choice. For this project I used a diamond wheel on my rotary tool. If you’ve never used a rotary tool to cut glass, it’s pretty easy. Just take your time and go slowly and you should be fine. These bottles are thick and have square edges, so it was a little more challenging than a standard round bottle would be, but the results are worth it.

Make sure you cut your bottle to the appropriate height needed for your plant. You can use the pots they come in as a guideline.

All I did was mark a line where I wanted to cut and went at it with my diamond cutting wheel. I did a rough line because I wanted an imperfect, hand-crafted looking edge.

Safety first! If you’re going to work with glass, for the love of God please wear safety glasses and gloves. I repeat, wear safety glasses and gloves.

Oh speaking of safety, after you cut the bottle, make sure to sand down all of the sharp edges. They can get pretty sharp and you don’t want to ruin your impressive new Patrón planters by bleeding all over them. Once you’re done cutting and sanding, just fill up the planter with your greenery and pat yourself on the back for being amazing.

Are you inspired yet?! If you want to enter the Art of Patron contest, make sure you submit your entry before July 17, 2015. Who knows, maybe you’ll win those $10,000!

No Mexican themed party is a real fiesta without papel picado. Papel picado is a Mexican folk art where designs are cut into paper and displayed for different special occasions.

Professional papel picado is really impressive and can feature different elaborate scenes. Commonly seen designs are skeletons, birds, and flowers for Day of the Dead celebrations. You don’t have to be a pro to make your own pretty papel picado though. Here’s how to do it.

Using colored tissue paper, you’re going to fold and cut different shapes out. It’s similar to making paper snowflakes. You know the ones.

1. Cut a rectangle of tissue paper. 6″x8″ is a good size.

2. Fold the paper in quarters, width wise.

3-4. Make an curvy cut at the bottom.

5-6. Cut shapes into folds. Try folding at different angles to get as much variety as possible.

I like to iron mine with low heat when they’re finished. This smooths the fold lines out nicely.

Use as many different colors and designs as possible!

Use clear tape to attach them to a ribbon or string and hang them like a garland.

I’ve been in need of a new welcome mat for like a year now, but I haven’t found the right one that I loved enough to invest in. Luckily I spotted these colorful and inexpensive door mats at IKEA. I knew I could probably stencil my own design onto it, and for $8 I really had nothing to lose. It turned out perfectly and it’s totally me.

I couldn’t think of a more (in)appropriate way to welcome guests into my home than with “Welcome to the shit show”. There always ends up being something weird or unexpected happening when we have people over, so this is basically a fair warning of what you’re getting into when you come over.

To make this happen, I had to first make a stencil. I printed my letters out and then used an exacto knife to cut the letters out of pieces of card stock.

I repeated a letter in the beginning of each new stencil so I could align it with the last letter stenciled. That way everything would be in line properly.

After I decided where I wanted the stencils to go, I just taped them to the mat and used a sponge to put regular craft paint on.

Keep the details of the letters by leaving pieces of them connected, you can fill them in later.

Use a small brush to fill in any spots and do any touch ups that are needed. After it dries a bit you can use a small pair of scissors to clip away any mistakes and sharpen up the lettering.

Let it dry over night before putting it out. I don’t know how well the paint will hold up to being stepped on, but I can always go back and do touch ups, so I’m not worried about it.